Printing costs are a substantial expense for many corporations, universities, and other organizations. These costs can include for example: initial cost of the printing systems; paper cost; toner or ink cost; repair costs in the form of individual repair calls or a long-term repair contract; and so forth. Printers under heavy use such as is typical in corporations, universities, or other organizations often require frequent repairs, and the operating lifetime for these devices may be only a few years or less. Moreover, because it is highly advantageous to have ready access to printing capability, these printing costs are not readily outsourced.
One approach for reducing printing costs is to place an emphasis on frugality, for example by purchasing “economy” model printers, lower cost paper, and so forth. However, this involves problematic trade-offs. An economy printer may produce a lower quality printed product. Lower cost paper may correspond with lower quality paper. The resulting reduction in the quality of printed documents can adversely impact organizational operations, for example by leading to failed business proposals, lost business opportunities, and so forth. The apparent savings may be offset by increased repair costs, more frequent paper jams, shortened printer lifetime, and consequent increased downtime and possibly missed deadlines.
Another approach sometimes taken is to aggressively limit or prohibit printing of personal papers and other non-organizational work. However, the quantity of personal printing is typically low as a proportion of the total printing load, which limits the savings achievable by this approach. Strict enforcement of such limiting or prohibiting rules can also adversely affect employee morale.
Another approach sometimes taken is to shift printing costs to end users. For example, a university department may require its professors and researchers to supply their own printing paper. The savings produced by these approaches are, however, illusory—the costs remain, and are merely hidden by the accounting shift.